I have developed few flash games, distributed them over various flash game portals and I am not satisfied with financial income they generated according to the amount of work I put in. I relied on add revenue income but it turned out it is bad idea to do that, unless game is really good and polished, which is hard to achieve with one-man team, at least for me. And even if you get team, you are still competing with hundreds of other top games and hope to get lucky in order to earn that 1000 bucks per month per developer. Things may be better with licensing a game, but still you do not get a deal without heavily polished product and deals seem to average in about 1000-2000 bucks. Licensing is more stable and feasable way of getting income but financially not good enough for 2 programmers and an artist, over 2 months of development time.

I think that flash market is just too much risky to mess around with hiring a team to develope a game. It seems to be heavily oversaturated market where only top quality, polished games get income and even those need luck to get success.

Questions for you;

1. Do you think I should stay at flash market, hire a team, do a 2-month project and try better with licensing?

2. If you think I should hire a team and move elsewhere, what market should I consider?Steam?Xbla?Smartphone?OUYA?Other?

Aim is to choose such market that chances of financial success stay (to be exact let it be 1000 bucks per dev per month) in some highly plausible borders, which flash market seems can not deliver. It may seem like I am asking for secure bet, but there has to be some market that is decently plausible for success if things are handled properly.

I think that flash market is just too much risky to mess around with hiring a team to develope a game. It seems to be heavily oversaturated market where only top quality, polished games get income and even those need luck to get success.

The game market IS risky to mess around with hiring a team to develop a game. It IS a heavily oversaturated market where only top quality, polished games get income and even those need luck to get success. You have to acknowledge the risk and deal with it.

-- Tom SloperSloperama ProductionsMaking games fun and getting them done.www.sloperama.com

Please do not PM me. My email address is easy to find, but note that I do not give private advice.

Indie games just aren't that profitable. He might be better off making applications if he wants money.

Since term "applications" is quite broad in my dictionary, I would ask for some more details or topics I should take a look at.

He's just saying "non-game apps"

I'd still like to expand on this, though...

Applications are pretty much programs which help you somehow or make life easier, that aren't games. Like, there is a market out there for art programs, but you have to do something Photoshop, GIMP and Paint.Net currently don't, or do it better than them. If you want a smaller, more niche market, you can focus on making game development tools for sale, but that market might require a little more work, and might possibly have less pay.

The mobile game market is saturated, but you can make it big if you create something addictive. It doesn't even have to be unique. Doodle Jump copied and improved PapiJump, and two brothers made millions of dollars on a simple game with lousy graphics.